The small tabloid papers that The Republican has been publishing on Mondays and Saturdays since June 2009 are going away. The newspaper again will be full-sized seven days of the week.

Based on what I and our top editors heard from readers during a series of coffees around town, most of you will think that the change can’t come soon enough.

We are not just changing the shape or cosmetics of the paper. We are adding pages, news and features. Although most improvements are targeted for Mondays and Saturdays, the Sunday paper also will get a boost. Indeed, we think readers will notice improvements every day in both the paper’s visual presentation and content. Here are some of the content highlights:

• Monday is the debut of Business Monday, an all-new business section with beefed up coverage of Western Massachusetts, as well as a greater focus on the I-91 “knowledge corridor” from Hartford north to Vermont. Business Monday also will include selected content from the outstanding Boston Business Journal.

• Monday also will launch a revamped Parenting section, including a new Mom’s column, Family Matters, a guide to things to do, and weekly useful parenting tips.

• We will also bring back full-size editorial and Op-Ed pages on Mondays to share reader feedback, opinions and editorials.

• Our Health & Science coverage on Wednesdays will be expanded to include news and notes on the local health scene.

Next Saturday’s full-sized paper will bring back the opinion page, Cartoons and Quotes, with color editorial cartoons and excerpts from the MassLive.com forums.

Next Saturday also will mark the debut of Pioneer Valley Life, a lifestyle and entertainment guide that is also the new home of the monthly sections of Life After 50 and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Fashion will be the theme of the first Pioneer Valley Life.

• Saturday’s paper will also include a full page of money-saving coupons.

• Next Sunday’s paper will bring back events listings and the popular movie capsules.

In case anyone is worried, we are not changing the Republican’s typeface or doing anything that will make the paper harder to read. And we are not making these changes so we can raise the price.

We are simply trying to make you, the reader, much happier with your newspaper, and putting ourselves in a better position to serve our readers, our advertisers and the community. We are ending the confusion in the marketplace about a paper that looks so different on different days. And we are trying to send a strong message that The Republican is back, big time.

Last year’s move to the smaller Monday and Saturday papers was driven by the newspaper’s need to cut its expenses due to the terrible recession that hammered us and so many of our advertising customers. The improvements we are making now do not mean that the recession is over, but they do signal our strong belief that the worst is behind us, and that The Republican again can move forward by strengthening itself in multiple ways.

This week your newspaper celebrated its 186th year of public service. Based upon a legacy of excellent work by generations of dedicated newspaper people, especially by my friends and immediate predecessors Larry McDermott and David Starr, the newspaper is welcomed into your home as a trusted friend and as an advocate for your community’s well-being.

As a reader, for example, you know you can count on us for fair, complete and impartial news coverage of the primary election this week. You know that our journalists are always there to report, with accuracy and fairness, difficult and important stories. Just within the past 10 days they have been your reliable eyes and ears on topics as diverse as police discipline cases, the ouster of Cathedral High School’s athletic director-dean of students, local mob murders, and an apparent conflict of interest involving a prominent local politician.

You also know that you - along with our 300,000-plus other adult readers - can count on our advertising columns for the most complete information available on prices and products in the local marketplace.